Rocket Woman

Rockets are massive, complex machines. We launched the Falcon Heavy rocket in February 2018, and it’s the most powerful rocket currently flying. It weighs about 1.4 million kilograms (3.1 million pounds) and can lift up to 63 tons into orbit.

Rockets, like the Falcon Heavy, burn liquid fuel in the presence of oxygen (O) to create thrust. This force pushes the rocket upward. A rocket’s thrust has to be greater than its weight. Otherwise, the rocket won’t make it off the launchpad. The thrust created by the Falcon Heavy at liftoff was equal to the force produced by eighteen 747 passenger jets.

Right now, we carry out all of our missions with our Falcon 9 rocket. It’s a tall cylindrical tube that houses engines and fuel in two separate stages, or sections. The first stage lifts the rocket from the launchpad and sets it on a curved trajectory through the air. It then separates from the second stage, which continues carrying the payload into orbit.

We can recover the first stage rocket to reuse with a technique called propulsive landing. As the first stage falls away, thrusters flip it around so its engines are pointing downward. The engines fire multiple times to guide the rocket toward a landing pad on the ground or a drone ship. It’s incredibly difficult to steer the rocket so precisely. Once it gets close to Earth, its engines fire again to slow down its descent for a gentle touchdown. As the rocket lands, legs fold out to hold it in place.

Reusable rockets are the first step. Without them, astronauts who someday visit Mars would have no way to get back home.

We’ve been working for a few years on designs for a spaceship that will take people to Mars. It’ll be able to carry 100 tons of cargo and 100 passengers. A round-trip to Mars will take about two-and-a-half years, so astronauts will need to take a lot of supplies with them to survive the long flight.

We’re starting to build the spaceship now and are hoping to do some testing of it this year. We’re aiming to send people to Mars within the next 10 years. Getting there will definitely happen in our lifetime!

No! We’ve had rockets explode, crash, and fail to land. But people learn far more from their failures than from their successes. With success, you tend not to think about what could have gone wrong. With failure, you can figure out what went wrong and fix it. Engineers are never satisfied. They always want to tweak, test, or reanalyze a design.